In August 2017, Vernee announced a smartphone with the laconic name “M5”. The new product is positioned as a balanced model, in a thin, light and stylish body, with fairly good hardware and excellent optimization. The smartphone supports fourth generation networks, has decent amounts of memory, good battery life and is attractive at an affordable price. Overall, it turned out to be quite an interesting device. But whether the Vernee M5 is truly a balanced solution remains to be seen based on the results of the review. Let's see what a $129 smartphone can do?
Appearance, body materials and assembly
The smartphone has a classic body design, which is not distinguished by the absence of frames or the glossy shine of the rear panel. However, the Vernee M5 looks stylish and presentable in both black and blue colors. The case is metal, with the exception of narrow plastic inserts on the rear panel, necessary to ensure stable signal reception. The build quality is at a decent level; thanks to the perfect joining of the elements, there are no backlashes, creaks or gaps.
In addition to the visual component, the manufacturer paid a lot of attention to the ergonomics of the device. The case is light (144 grams with battery) and very thin (6.9 mm). The screen and back panel have a slightly curved shape. The surface of the metal panel is matte, non-slip and pleasant to the touch. Taken together, these factors had a positive effect on comfort of use, as well as ease of operation with one hand. In addition, the smartphone easily fits into any medium-sized pocket.
At first glance, everything is perfect, but there are still some controversial issues. Just look at the empty frame under the screen, which could easily accommodate a fingerprint scanner and touch navigation buttons. Instead, the control elements take up free space on the display, and the fingerprint sensor is located on the rear panel, at the bottom of the main camera module.
However, there are no direct complaints about the operation of the sensor itself. The built-in fingerprint scanner ensures data security and quick unlocking of the device (in 0.1 seconds). To biometrically identify a user, simply place your finger on the touchpad at any angle. There is no need to turn on the screen first.
Arrangement of elements on the body
Almost all buttons and connectors have a location that is familiar to most users.
The volume rocker along with the power control button is located on the right end.
A tray with a metal plug is placed on the left side. The hybrid configuration tray has 2 slots that can accommodate a SIM card and an external memory drive.
The bottom end is occupied by a MicroUSB connector with OTG support, as well as microphone and multimedia speaker openings.
The earpiece grille is located on top of the screen, between the sensors and the front camera.
On the top edge you can find a 3.5 mm headset jack and an additional noise-canceling microphone.
Display
As a rule, phablets (smartphones with a screen diagonal of 5.5” and above) are chosen for comfortable viewing of content. If convenience for everyday use is a priority, preference is given to more compact models. At the same time, for a smartphone with regular frames, a display with a diagonal of 5.2” is considered the best option. Such a device, with its relatively small body dimensions, is quite suitable for watching videos, web surfing, online correspondence, etc.
Vernee M5 is equipped with a 5.2-inch IPS display made using In-Cell technology. The use of this technology involves the integration of the touch layer directly into the LCD display, due to which the physical size of the structure is reduced, and the speed of response of the touch panel to touch. The matrix is characterized by good viewing angles and high-quality color rendition. HD resolution (1280 x 720) provides the pixel density needed for crisp images. Using a matrix with a higher resolution would be unprofitable due to a significant increase in the load on the video core.
Performance, memory
The Vernee M5 is powered by a 64-bit MediaTek MT6750 chipset based on the ARM.bigLITTLE architecture. The processor consists of 8 Cortex-A53 cores, divided into 2 clusters. One cluster has 4 cores with a frequency of 1.0 GHz, the second has 4 cores of 1.5 GHz. Due to this structure, the processor copes with resource-intensive tasks without problems, and in the absence of significant loads it demonstrates economical energy consumption. The chipset is complemented by a 2-core Mali-T860 MP2 graphics accelerator, which has enough power to play FullHD video and run modern 3D games. The smoothness of games will depend on how demanding they are on hardware resources, as well as on the graphics quality settings.
Thanks to 4 GB of RAM, the smartphone demonstrates excellent performance in the interface and everyday work, as well as a fairly high speed of launching applications. There are no problems with multitasking, since there is enough RAM to run several applications simultaneously. Depending on the configuration, the device can be equipped with a flash drive with a capacity of 32 or 64 GB. There is enough free space to install games, applications, store photos, videos and audio tracks. In addition, it supports installation of a MicroSD memory card with a capacity of up to 128 GB.
Software
At a time when many manufacturers, even on budget models, install an OS with a modified shell and additional firmware, Vernee used VOS 1.0 firmware based on Android 7.0 Nougat. The system comes with built-in services and applications from Google, and is not burdened with third-party software. The OS interface is standard, without significant modifications. The developers paid a lot of attention to optimizing the firmware, due to which they managed to reduce power consumption and achieve exponential device speed comparable to more powerful smartphones.
For the convenience of users, small but very useful features have been introduced into the system. For example, instead of manually changing the priority of SIM cards through the settings, now When making a call, you can select the required SIM directly in the dialer by pressing one of the two call buttons. A similar principle is used in many push-button phones. “Pocket mode” and gesture support have also been added. Using the integrated DuraSpeed utility, you can limit background processes, freeing up resources for a specific application or game.
Autonomy
Thanks to an energy-efficient processor and a screen with HD resolution that is not the largest, the device uses energy quite economically. With a built-in 3300 mAh battery in active use mode, Vernee M5 can work throughout the day. On one charge, the smartphone plays video for 13 hours straight. By using the extended power saving mode, as well as excluding games and watching videos, you can count on about 2 days of battery life.
Cameras
The role of the main camera is performed by a 13-megapixel sensor, with fast autofocus and LED flash. The maximum resolution of recorded videos is 1080p@30fps. To prevent the user from missing an interesting or important frame, the manufacturer has provided the ability to quickly launch the camera by double pressing the power button. Immediately after startup, the focusing system will automatically work, and the finished photo will be immediately saved in a folder with other photos.
The front camera allows you to shoot with a resolution of 8 MP. Equipped with an intelligent face recognition function, as well as a mode for automatically correcting facial skin in photographs.
Wireless interfaces
The design of the combined slot allows you to simultaneously install 2 Nano SIM cards. The modem built into the SoC provides the ability to operate in 2G, 3G and 4G FDD-LTE networks (B1/B3/B7/B20), as well as support for wireless connections Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth v4.0. The smartphone is compatible with GLONASS and GPS navigation systems, as well as cold start acceleration technology A-GPS).
Advantages and disadvantages of Vernee M5
Pros:
- nice design, high-quality assembly;
- thin, compact body;
- good autonomy;
- decent amounts of memory;
- fast fingerprint scanner:
- “clean”, optimized OS;
- speed at work.
Minuses:
- the presence of an NFC module is not provided;
- Wi-Fi can only operate in one band (2.4 GHz);
- the manufacturer did not use the free space on the panel under the screen to install touch buttons or a fingerprint sensor.
conclusions
Vernee managed to release a perfectly balanced smartphone in almost every way, with the exception of a few minor nuances mentioned in the review. But if you add up all the advantages of the device and the affordable price, you get a very attractive option. Now the smartphone costs only $129 (both black and blue) - a great price! However, this price tag is only valid during pre-sale. The official price after will be $159.
Vernee M5 is one of the most inexpensive smartphones with the MediaTek MT6750 chipset, which, together with HD screen and optimized OS demonstrates excellent performance, at the level of more powerful models. In addition, the manufacturer was able to maintain the minimum possible thickness of the case, given that the built-in battery capacity is 3300 mAh.
